Ok, let's put some more flesh on the bone... The main idea by Stardust is to get a better work-flow on the Puppy desktop. BUT, this should not take much space or resources. Replacing the Stardust Desktop by the original Puppy desktop will not include more kiloytes!

Let's seperate Stardust into 3 different categories. Artwork, Widgets and Core. The last one is the complex one, and I'll try to explain a bit more in-depth.

1. Artwork
By far the largest category. You might ask why include 3 icon-sets that alone weight 419kb compressed. The reason is because the original icon-sets in Puppy is not compatible with Stardust. Well, compatible is might not the correct word.... 'not complete' is probably better. The icon-sets in Stardust is extended with some more icons to better reflect all features (installed apps) in Puppy.

2. Widgets
Pwidgets includes a nice collection of small desktop apps made by the Puppy community. Size is around 270kb compressed, and includes widgets, manager and engine (conky). For older machines, running widgets might be heavy stuff to run. The Pwidgets engine can be stopped/started via the Pwidgets manager or the Control center in Stardust. This package includes some updated code for the 'Wallpaper setter'. This to sync wallpaper with widgets background.

3. Core
This includes many scripts and guis, but not many bytes. Some are new, but some are updates of the scripts already in Puppy. The external apps are not unique Puppy programs, and the red ones are no longer needed.

Menus
In Stardust there is not only 1 menu. There are several, and you can define which one should show up when mouse-right-click, mid-click... There is a gui (Pmenu) that handles this. Favorites menu lets you store your prefered files/apps/directories/URLs. You can edit it in Pmenu, but the easiest way is to right-click on a directory or file in Rox, and choose 'Add to Favorites'. By default the main menu shows most-used apps. To get this working, /usr/sbin/fixmenus had to get an overhault. Most-used menu is a nice feature, but also what 'infects' your Puppy system. - fixwidgets redirects all exec-values in .desktop files to start-scripts in /usr/share/stardust/bin/. The starter-scripts is what shows up when clicking the left-tray - 'Add icon'. This solves an old issue with Puppy. - How to let newbies add a program-icon on desktop. Pmenu also includes a tool to add/remove apps from the programs menu (the good old Puppy menu). Technically you remove an app from the menu by moving .desktop file from /usr/share/applications to /usr/share/applications_nomenu. Fixmenus also clean up the menu by adding space between icon and text, and by splitting appname and description (SeaMonkey - web browser).

Trays
Stardust shows 4 trays by default. It is probably way too many, but they can easily be hidden. With the new tray tool (Ptray), you have full control over your trays, and can build them the way you want them. It must be said that the Ptray gui is not as easy as the old jwmconfig2 boxes, but they are not compareable in what you can do with them. Adding an app to a tray searches for a matching icon in /root/.stardust/tmp/iconlist. This list is generated by fixmenus, and is used by tray items and 'most-used-apps' menu. The prefered icons are those defined in /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/ROX-Filer/globicons. The globicons file in Stardust might not reflect all the apps installed in your Puppy. If so, Stardust will use icons defined in *.desktop file.

Corners
The desktop corners can be made 'hot' by defining it as an execution area. This is handled by Pcorner, which is reachable from the control center. By default, Pnote (desktop notepad) is active in the upper-left corner. The structure behind these active corners is a tiny tray in each corner. These are defined as $HOME/.jwmrc-corner-xx. The only content of the 2-pixel corner-tray is a swallowed gtkdialog application that has one purpose; send an enter-notify-event when mouse is touching corner. It's defined a delay of 0.4 sec to prevent execution of a mouse in affect.

Themes
Stardust can handle global themes. You can store settings for all themes (gtk/jwm/wall/widgets...) in Puppy, and later change the Puppy apperance in one click. - Either via Ptheme-gui or from cli. This release of Stardust includes 4 global themes which is reachable from the top tray buttons. - I call them MoodButtons. Themes are stored in /root/.startdust/themes (together with other stardust stuff), and are simply a textfile that holds info of each unique sub-theme (gtk...). The gtk theme-switcher in Puppy does not allow input from cli, so Stardsut includes an alternative gtk theme-switcher. This one is not as polished as the original gtk-chtheme, so I have made a new gui for DuDE. The jwm-theme switcher is simplified, and iconswithcer is rewritten. Now it both handles gui and cli in one script (iconswicther_cli is not needed), and it does not scale 48x48 icons to 24x24 icons. - I can not see the reason for doing this. Jwm scales just fine, so if we want the same icon for the menu, we can simply make a symlink from www48.png to www24.png. Also this makes it possible to have unique menu icons (as in Stardust).

Rox integration
HairyWill made the rox-right-click pack a long time ago. My solution is based on Will's work. What I have done, is made it more flexible. Instead of hardcode menu-items in rox, I have pointed them to the 'default' apps (defaulthtmlviewer...). I have not included all obvious options (what happens if you left-click on file), but instead focused on alternative options. If you click on a image, it shows up in the viewer, but right-click shows option to edit as well. It is not obvious what the prefered action should be for an iso-file. Should it be mounted, or should it be burnt. - It is nice to offer more options. All files has got the menu-entry to 'Add to trash', 'Encrypt file' and 'Add to favorites'. To control the default apps, I have included pizzasgood's old 'defaulthandler'. Also, a new defaultpdfviewer is added.

DIPS - Desktop integrated programs
The filosophy of DIPS is that some programs benefits of an unique integration in the desktop environment. These are both external programs, and dip-programs written for Stardust.

PNOTE
Pnote is yet another notepad. There wouldn't be a reason for writing a new notepad if the goal was an ordinary pad. But this one fits perfect to the Stardust desktop. Move the mouse into the upper-left corner, and Pnote shows up. Write (paste) your notes, and continue to work in your major app. Pnote will disappear....

VIRTUAL KEYBOARD
Why include a virtual keyboard (xvkbd) into the Stardust pack? Yes, it sounds like a core app, but again; by using a unique configuration we get a better result... Xvkbd can sure be ran as a standalone program, but then the window manager (JWM) treats it like all the other apps, and it 'steals' focus from the app you want to write in. Stardust doesn't run it as an app, but as an autohidden tray (one app in a unique tray). Like this the keyboard doesn't need to take the focus from the active window to work. The virtual keyboard can be switched on/off in the control center.

SHUTDOWN DIALOG
For me, the menu works just as good as this dialog, but users of the Puppy Stardust iso, has reported that thick fingers and a small touchpad gives boom shots.

MICKSCLOCK
01micko used yaf-splash to make a fullscreen clock. - I thought it was a funny idea, and included it.

MISC
In addition, DuDE take advantage of other Stardust resources which is not a part of the DuDE pack.
- Opens Pprocess with Ctrl+Alt+Del. Requires Pprocess 2.1 or newer.
- Control volume with keys Alt+Up/Down. It requires Pmusic (1.0.0 or newer), but works as master volume.
- Play next (Alt+Left) song or previous (Alt+Right). This requires Pmusic 1.0.0 or newer

Misc
The control center was initial made as an attempt to clean up the menus in Puppy. As complexity has grown, the menus has become huge ( read 'unreadable'). My thought was to move apps from the menu into the control center. Later the new menu-structure with 'Most-used' and 'Favorites' helped a lot, so the control center does not have the same momentum. But it gives more possibilities for explanations, and grouping of functions. Maybe most important is the possibility for more flexiblility. - Look at the included service manager. It is simple, small, and logical to find in a control center.

Pfont is a small app to install TTF fonts.

That's all
Sigmund_________________Stardust resourcesLast edited by zigbert on Sun 05 Sep 2010, 10:19; edited 8 times in total

I've installed this on Barry's experimental 4.3.2 and so far it's working fine. It's already more stable than the pre-alpha 4.4CE. Thanks for the mini tutorial. Lot more to explore.

How do you change the icons in the favorites menu? Most are showing as a generic icon.

Minor problem--Upon reboot, after a change such as adding a program or another sfs, the default 432 icons return to desktop and have to be manually removed.

Thanks,
Jim
EDIT: Also tried it on Quirky 010, it appeared to work OK, however, all menu icons were a small orange square, so that ended my trial on Quirky.Last edited by Jim1911 on Sat 20 Mar 2010, 20:57; edited 1 time in total

This is a very well constructed, nicely thought out and handsome piece of work. I downloaded just the Dude part and it found it ideal for controlling every aspect of the Puppy experience. Well done.

Just to add to your suggestion about backing up the pup-save file, it probably is best viewed first and used with pfix=ram, so that the effects can be viewed before saving, as the current tray and jwm config files will be overridden.

What a stunning arrangement of icons and choices.

Thanks very much,
S
(Edit - one small item - when I tried to add gtkhash to the right-click primary menu, it did not appear, even though it was symlinked to /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/OpenWith/.application_x-executable/ - )

How do you change the icons in the favorites menu? Most are showing as a generic icon.

The preferred icon is set by the fixmenus script. See /root/.stardust/tmp/iconlist. I have chosen to use generic icon as first priority. If there doesn't exist a generic icon, it will use the one defined in the .desktop file (as in menu). The reason is double:
1. I want the desktop to follow the icon theme.
2. The generic icons are 48 pixels, and looks better than 16-pixels-icons as in the menu. Note that adding an icon to desktop also use the same icon selection.

This is a very well constructed, nicely thought out and handsome piece of work.

Thank you

seaside wrote:

(Edit - one small item - when I tried to add gtkhash to the right-click primary menu, it did not appear, even though it was symlinked to /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/OpenWith/.application_x-executable/ - )

Hello Jim
Running Lucid Puppy now, and things seems to run fine for me. Both tray-edit-button and pcc->desktop->menu. ?????? any terminal output? Remember to restart X to settle things.....
I have made some progress on the 0.2 version of DuDE. I use Lucid as my base for the work, so we should be ready for the Puppy future when it arrives Sigmund

I did, no change, also rebooted. PCC >> Desktop >> Tray button and tray-edit button are what do not respond, other controls in the PCC work fine. What console command do I use to start tray-edit? On the other hand since it works fine for you, maybe I should wait for 0.2 version unless you need feedback.
Cheers,
Jim

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